Waka and Things, Waka as Things

Edward Kamens, the Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies

(Yale University Press)

This illustrated volume offers a fresh perspective on classical Japanese poetry (waka), including many poems treated here for the first time in a Western-language publication. Edward Kamens examines these poems both as they relate to material things and as things in and of themselves, exploring their connections to artifacts and works of visual art, sacred and secular alike, and investigating the rhetorical messages and powers accessed and activated through these multimedia productions.